Parahpilias?

[cadence]

Paraphilias all have in common distressing and repetitive sexual fantasies, urges, or behaviors. These fantasies, urges, or behaviors must occur for a significant period of time and must interfere with either satisfactory sexual relations or everyday functioning if the diagnosis is to be made. There is also a sense of distress within these individuals. In other words, they typically recognize the symptoms as negatively impacting their life but feel as if they are unable to control them.


Do you find your fantasies, urges or behaviors distressing? Did you at one point? Did something change your thought process that resulted in it no longer being distressing? Or better yet, let's ask the question, did you find it more distressing when you were trying to squash and ignore or fantasies, urges, or behaviors or after you finally recognized them and started accepting them?

I have been thinking about this question for a bit, since I thought that yes I could be grouped into the category of being a paraphilia. My mind never leaves the kinky, deviant thoughts alone.
I think there is a fine line drawn though, between that disorder and what we here think.
The difference is that paraphilia's are uncomfortable with thier thoughts, they reject them completely. They would not act out nor experience those thoughts. This would be why sexual relations and normal everyday functions are interuppted. We all have random thoughts that go through our minds everyday. Some thoughts may be entirely out of context and place, but we can dismiss them away easily. Some people cannot do that, and the thoughts become the main focus of thier life. They want them gone, but cannot stop thinking about them.

I am sure that we all have our fantasies and thoughts, and we may have been distressed by them when they were not accepted by others.
The difference is that we accept those thoughts and embrace them. When we accept that these thought processes are normal our lives move into a more positive direction. I would think that once it starts taking over your life negatively, then you have a problem.

[annie]

I have been thinking about this question for a bit, since I thought that yes I could be grouped into the category of being a paraphilia. My mind never leaves the kinky, deviant thoughts alone.
I think there is a fine line drawn though, between that disorder and what we here think.
The difference is that paraphilia's are uncomfortable with thier thoughts, they reject them completely. They would not act out nor experience those thoughts. This would be why sexual relations and normal everyday functions are interuppted. We all have random thoughts that go through our minds everyday. Some thoughts may be entirely out of context and place, but we can dismiss them away easily. Some people cannot do that, and the thoughts become the main focus of thier life. They want them gone, but cannot stop thinking about them.

I am sure that we all have our fantasies and thoughts, and we may have been distressed by them when they were not accepted by others.
The difference is that we accept those thoughts and embrace them. When we accept that these thought processes are normal our lives move into a more positive direction. I would think that once it starts taking over your life negatively, then you have a problem.

Wonderful post Cadence... hadn't really thought of it from that angle.....

[TomStraye]

I have been thinking about this question for a bit, since I thought that yes I could be grouped into the category of being a paraphilia. My mind never leaves the kinky, deviant thoughts alone.
I think there is a fine line drawn though, between that disorder and what we here think.

Just a thought — how many people here were disturbed/distressed by their fantasies/desires until they discovered they were not alone in feeling that way and that their feelings are shared by millions of otherwise perfectly normal people?

Not that I'm suggesting we are abnormal but ... Well, I guess I'm just thinking Freud and the concept that, once you cut through all the crap, it was not their desires that made his patients ill, but their repression/denial of those desires.

Take eating disorders. Nothing abnormal about eating. And yet there are people out there who just cannot come to terms with their need to eat. Probably a bad example, but hopefully you get the point.

[alpha_Straye]

Just a thought — how many people here were disturbed/distressed by their fantasies/desires until they discovered they were not alone in feeling that way and that their feelings are shared by millions of otherwise perfectly normal people?

Not that I'm suggesting we are abnormal but ... Well, I guess I'm just thinking Freud and the concept that, once you cut through all the crap, it was not their desires that made his patients ill, but their repression/denial of those desires.

Take eating disorders. Nothing abnormal about eating. And yet there are people out there who just cannot come to terms with their need to eat. Probably a bad example, but hopefully you get the point.

so We really are Paraphilias, We're just in recovery?*Grin*

[gloombunny]

Just a thought — how many people here were disturbed/distressed by their fantasies/desires until they discovered they were not alone in feeling that way and that their feelings are shared by millions of otherwise perfectly normal people?

That's an interesting question. I'm pretty sure I knew about BDSM in general before I realized I was into it, so I never really thought of it as abnormal in the first place. (Since I've known I'm into BDSM since I was 10 years old or so, you can probably chalk this up to my liberal San Francisco upbringing. ^_- )

Not that I'm suggesting we are abnormal but ... Well, I guess I'm just thinking Freud and the concept that, once you cut through all the crap, it was not their desires that made his patients ill, but their repression/denial of those desires.

Take eating disorders. Nothing abnormal about eating. And yet there are people out there who just cannot come to terms with their need to eat. Probably a bad example, but hopefully you get the point.

I think this is precisely what psychologists are trying to get at with the clinical definitions of paraphilias. A paraphiliac disorder isn't just having a kink, it's having a kink and not being able to deal with that in a healthy way.

[cadence]

Just a thought — how many people here were disturbed/distressed by their fantasies/desires until they discovered they were not alone in feeling that way and that their feelings are shared by millions of otherwise perfectly normal people?

I don't think I can particularly say I was distressed by my fantasies/desires. I was more upset that I couldn't find someone who felt the same way as I did.
I chalked it up to being a bit abnormal and a minority. I knew that I wasn't completely abnormal, just different. Having no access to the internet, or no way of really knowing where to look for likeminded people didn't help things.

I repressed the idea that I would find someone who felt the same way I did. I really didn't repress my fantasies. I kept them as a way to cope with my vanilla life.